MARK LITTLEWOOD EXPLAINS POPCON'S DECISION TO BACK ROBERT JENRICK

"A nice problem to have. That’s what football managers say when they have two stellar players, both in top form, but there is only a place for one of them in the starting eleven..."

 

Telegraph: 16th October 2024: PopCon Director, Mark Littlewood, praises both leadership candidates, but explains why he thinks Robert Jenrick has the edge.

"...It’s a difficult decision... Who to pick out of two truly excellent, albeit very different, candidates?... PopCon was set up... with the mission of reconfiguring the conservative movement to think more widely about the institutional infrastructure which governs Britain and why this might explain broadly disappointing progress towards conservative ends over the course of 14 years of Tory-led government...

Both Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch buy into this broad analysis. Technocratic managerialism is certain to fail – as the new Labour Government is demonstrating daily. There needs to be a restoration of democratic principles and a complete unravelling of the horrific quangocratic state that emerged under Tony Blair and continued to grow under the Conservatives...

But we have to choose between these two candidates and I have decided to vote for Robert Jenrick... 

First, I am completely persuaded that Robert’s political thinking has been born of real experience... He took the step of resigning from the last government because he learnt and saw... that its approach to immigration could not work. This was not confected, it was true conviction... 

Second, he is clear that it is not just the state that is dysfunctional, but the Conservative Party itself... Jenrick gets this completely and will overhaul the entire way the party does business... His pledge to make Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg party chairman underscores this in spades...

Finally, he has run a truly superb leadership campaign... if he can bring this attitude and energy to the wider party, I’m all for it... 

Kemi or Robert? A very nice problem for Conservatives to have. But I have decided to vote for Robert."

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